According to the U.S. State Department, more than 100 Syrian and other Middle Eastern refugees were previously slated to be housed by Catholic Social Services (CSS) in Mobile. The U.S.is the largest donor to the Syrian crisis response, donating almost $5.6 billion overall, according to Wells.
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In a reference to the security debate, Wells said that “refugees are the most thoroughly screened category of travelers to the United States”.
Trump has said that if he is elected he would persuade Gulf states to bankroll safe zones for Syrian refugees so they would not have to be brought to the United States.
Refugees come from all corners of the earth, with as many as 25,000 coming from regions in Africa.
In addition, some Democrats in Congress have pressed to toughen the screening process for Syrian refugees. One of those people is Nadim Fawzi Jouriyeh, 49, a former construction worker from Homs who has heart problems.
The effort got off to a slow start. The average review took more than a year and a half to complete.
The administration has “been under intense pressure from aid agencies and advocacy groups that raised doubts the resettlement goals would be met”, as Deborah reported. Upon completion of security and medical screening, the Homeland Security officer may approve the refugee’s application for US resettlement.
The issue of resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States has become a political flashpoint over the past year, with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, expressing concern about terrorists exploiting refugee flows to reach the west. “State legislatures have proposed laws to bar refugees, but state governors have no legal authority to halt federal immigration programs”.
Donald Trump has criticized President Obama’s resettlement program as a national security threat.
More than 99 percent of the Syrians accepted into the USA are Muslim, and 11 percent are men ages 14 to 30, the prime subgroup for being radicalized into terrorist activity, the Times reported.
Of the refugees resettled stateside, 80 percent are women and children under the age of 18, CBS reports.
At least 106 refugees from Syria have settled in the Bay State, according to data from the U.S. State Department’s Refugee Processing Center. That’s in comparison to 389 in fiscal year 2015. A poll last month by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that just 36 percent of Americans support admitting Syrian refugees to the U.S.
The IRC has helped almost five dozen Syrian refugees since the June of 2015.
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In total, almost five million people have fled Syria since 2011, according to the United Nations, the vast majority of which are living now in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.
